The Wall
by flyingisenough
Summary: Something is very wrong with Sherlock's latest problem, so he enlists a few friends to help investigate it. But the case is much more dangerous than it seems. When these remarkable people are split between two parallel universes, they'll each find out how far they're willing to go to be reunited. SuperWhoLock AU.
1. Chapter 1: A Body

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was inspired by a GIF set created by Tumblr user vanehwasreal, so all credit where credit is due. I merely expanded her premise into a full storyline. This is my first story on here; I hope you enjoy it. Updates every Monday. (Reposted due to some errors in the first chapter.)**

* * *

_London, England—12:35 PM_

Sherlock Holmes bent low to examine the body. Behind him, John Watson watched with a look of casual interest.

Someone tall and brown-haired appeared in the doorway to Sherlock's left, pulling off a pair of recently sterile gloves. He gestured to the corpse in question. "Uni kid, if you ask me. Got drunk with some buddies, maybe they had an argument—"

"Do shut up, Anderson," muttered Sherlock. "Speech wastes oxygen. The more air you breathe, the less I can use to do something useful." Behind him, John sniggered.

Anderson sneered at the detective. "I'll plant a tree later, if you want. Just hurry it up, will you? You might be useful, but I still want you gone as soon as possible."

"John, get him out of here, please. The ignorance is suffocating."

John nodded, turning to Anderson. "Er, I think you'd better give him some space," he said, though the trace of a smile still curved his lips. "Sherlock works best alone."

"He's not alone if he's with you, is he?"

John shrugged. It was true, but John knew by now that in Sherlock Holmes' mind, his company wasn't the same as that of other people. "Just—space? Please?"

For a moment, it seemed that Anderson would protest. But eventually he turned and was gone, calling a nasal "Five minutes!" over his shoulder. John shut the door behind him and came back to the body, kneeling for a closer look.

"Well, John? What do you make of it?" Sherlock's voice carried that hint of amusement it always had when he asked John to make a deduction.

John frowned. He glanced up at his friend, but Sherlock's expectant eyes did nothing to ease his mind. "You know I'm no good at this, Sherlock."

"On the contrary. I find your observations to be of great use to me. Now, concentrate. What do you see?"

Recognizing that he would lose this argument, John sighed and did as he was told, planting his gaze firmly on the corpse. It was the body of a young man with long brown hair, lying on his stomach. He wore plain enough clothes—a plaid shirt layered beneath a tan jacket, with sensible jeans and trainers. But the plainness of the rest of him only made the cause of death more gruesome in comparison.

Stab wounds perforated his back. The blood oozing from them put in John's mind the morbid thought of a cherry pie, with filling showing between slits in the crust. He tried quickly to shake off _that_ particular association. A knife—quite a large one, from what the army doctor could guess—had sliced through the layers of clothing and plunged deep into the man's torso in half a dozen places.

Blood polished the wood floor in a neat pattern around the body. The edges of the pool reached out, half-congealed liquid rounding at the edges and almost-spilling to the next millimeter of oak.

Reaching out a steady hand, John felt several points on the man—his neck, his wrist, the opening to one of the wounds. Then he cleared his throat.

"Those stab wounds are at least three centimeters thick, most of them probably more. They were made by a common hunting knife, so no real way to trace the murder weapon. Cause of death was most likely blood loss or a punctured lung. He's young, maybe mid-twenties, though I'd have to get a closer look to be sure." The body's face was hidden behind a thick curtain of hair.

"Lestrade said the landlord found him this morning," continued John. "He wasn't a boarder—the whole building's empty. Nobody heard anything, except a neighbor across the way. Said she saw a big flash of light around ten o'clock last night. They're dusting for prints, but Greg isn't too hopeful on that one. It's too clean—no ID, no cell phone, nothing useful. At a guess, I'd say an angry family member thought they'd take him to a quiet building and boot him off. Took his ID so he'd be harder to identify and probably skipped the country by now."

Sherlock held one of the man's hands, flipped it over, studied the long fingers.

"Well?" asked John. "How'd I do?"

"About as capable as always, John," replied Sherlock. "That is to say, while you did miss almost every crucial detail apart from the completely obvious, it was a fine effort. Oh, don't be that way," he said, noticing John's scowl. "Sulking never solved a case."

"Then explain what I missed, Sherlock," said John. "Who was this man? Why's he here? Do you have any ideas at all?"

"Five so far. But let me get a glimpse at the face before I say anything more."

The head was face down, nose pressing into the floor—or, at least, John assumed it was, given that the hair prevented any kind of view. Sherlock scooted closer and lowered his torso so that his nose very nearly brushed the dead man's hair. John smirked as it occurred to him that Sherlock Holmes was perhaps the only person in the world who could be truly comfortable in such a position.

As he nudged the brown locks out of the way, John saw his friend's analytical eyes widen just a fraction.

It was enough to alert John that something was wrong. He felt his heart rate speed up, accompanied by that sense of vaguely giddy anticipation that always unsettled him. "Sherlock?" he asked. He couldn't see what the detective saw—he was on the other side of the body—but something about it was capable of surprising Sherlock Holmes, and that usually meant trouble was coming. "Sherlock, what is it?"

Sherlock's jaw clenched. Worry tightened his mouth. "John." The word was almost conversational, but John could hear the edge in it. "You need to see this."

As John hurried to his side, Sherlock leaned back into a crouching position, his mind already elsewhere, racing, calculating. John hadn't seen him this excited in months. This man, whatever his identity, was the beginning of something big.

John knelt just beyond the pool of blood and pushed aside the hair that his friend had let fall back into place. His hand revealed a domed forehead, sharp nose, and narrow eyes.

John knew this face.

It was the face of Sam Winchester.

* * *

_Clovis, New Mexico—7:00 AM_

Dean Winchester woke up to the sound of his cell phone playing "God Save the Queen", which was not the way he usually liked to begin his day. Demon slaying, maybe. Pig 'n a Poke, sure. Patriotic English tunes, absolutely not.

Still, this was the ring tone of an old friend, so Dean let his ruined morning slide for the time being. He groped on the nightstand for the phone and, upon finding it, hit the ACCEPT button and jammed it to his ear.

"This is Dean."

"Dean! Oh, thank God, you're okay."

"Watson." Dean would have smiled, but John Watson wasn't the type to make social calls. "Why wouldn't I be? Apart from the usual."

Watson's voice echoed as it was bounced around satellites and beamed to Dean's phone. "Dean, we need you out here. Now."

"What, London?" Dean scratched his head, yawning. "Why? What's going on? You know, I don't really do the whole transatlantic thing."

A sigh emanated from the other end of the line. "Dean, it's—it's Sam."

Dean sat up, throwing off the bed covers, instantly alert. He threw his gaze around the room.

The bed next to his was empty. So was the rest of the room.

On the table, Sam's laptop sat open and humming. His bag was at the foot of his bed, where he had dropped it before crawling on top of the sheets when they had gotten back to their motel the night before. Everything seemed normal, but it wasn't like Sam to leave without letting Dean know. Not since Ruby.

Dean slid off of his mattress and crept softly to the bathroom. "Watson? What about Sam?"

The light in the bathroom was off. Still, Dean pushed open the door. Nothing. Sam was gone.

Dean's stomach felt kicked in all of a sudden. "Sam?" He yelled again, louder. "Sammy?"

Watson was talking on the other end. "Dean, we found a body here. In an empty apartment. Dean, it's..." His voice trailed off for a moment, but he cleared his throat and continued. "It's Sam's body."

It was so hard to breathe. Why was it so hard to breathe all of a sudden? Dean struggled for air, but it wouldn't come. Watson was saying something, but all Dean could hear was an underwater, staticky kind of noise. It was like he was watching himself on television: he saw himself lean against a wall and sink to the floor, saw the slack-jawed horror on his own face, but he wasn't a part of it. It wasn't him.

Sam, dead. Again. This couldn't be happening. _Not again. Oh, God, please, not Sam. Why does it have to be us? Why does it always have to be us?_

_How did he get to London in the first place?_

That was a thought. Dean repositioned the phone in his hand. "Watson," he croaked. His throat was dry.

"Yeah?"

"Why is Sam in England? He was here last night, he was right—" Dean's voice broke, and he stopped talking before he broke down completely. His mind still raced. _Not again. Not Sammy. Take me. Take me instead._

Possibilities swam through his mind: he'd summon a crossroads demon, see if Crowley would take yet another deal from a Winchester. If that didn't work, maybe Cas could pull some strings, or Bobby could find some kind of spell—

Someone knocked on the motel room door.

"...know, Dean," Watson was saying. "But it's him, it's definitely him, I saw the body myself...Dean? Are you still there?"

"Yeah. I gotta call you back," said Dean. He hung up and stared at the door, puzzled. Who was knocking? No one knew they were staying here.

The knock came again, louder, more persistent. Dean struggled to his feet and walked over on shaking knees, ignoring the fact that he was still in his boxers. Somehow that didn't matter just now.

He steadied himself on the cool wood of the door, looked through the peephole, and nearly went into cardiac arrest right then and there.

"Dean! You gonna let me in?" It was Sam, grocery bags in hand. "I, uh, locked myself out by mistake. Come on, I know you're not in the shower yet."

Dean struggled to speak. "Yeah, just a minute," he called, hurrying back to the bags stashed beneath his bed. "Just give me a sec, I was still asleep."

The holy water was in a side pocket of his backpack, various knives in the main compartment. Dean grabbed a couple of choice blades and unscrewed the cap on the water, then crept back to the door. He undid the first lock and then the second. The bottle was shaking in his hand. Could he do it? Could he kill something that looked like his brother?

He didn't give himself a chance to answer.

Before Sam could do anything, Dean flung open the door and poured the entire bottle of holy water over his head. Neither of them spoke; the _glug-glug-glug_ of the bottle was the only sound in the place. Sam's mouth opened in surprise, and his eyes screwed shut. Dean gritted his teeth, waiting for the other man to scream and writhe.

But when the bottle was completely empty, there was still no reaction from Sam other than that first shocked-looking expression. After the last _glug_s had died out, the two men kept standing there, facing each other.

Dean glared. Sam dripped.

"Uh...is there something you want to tell me?" asked Sam, smirking a little.

Dean punched him in the face. The latter man recoiled, one hand over a cheekbone, surprise quickly turning to self-defense. The grocery bags fell as he ducked under Dean's arms and charged, knocking Dean backward onto the floor of the motel room. As Sam tried to reposition himself, Dean kicked upward into Sam's stomach. The breath left Sam's body in a _whoof_. Within seconds, Dean had gained the upper hand, straddling Sam's torso and pressing a silver knife to Sam's throat.

"I don't know what you are or what you want," growled the elder Winchester, "but the gig's up. A friend of mine found the body."

Sam struggled and bucked under his brother's weight, but it was no use. "What body? Dean, what's going on?"

"Sam's body!" roared Dean. "My little brother! And guess what, pal, you are gonna _pay_."

The knife opened a tiny cut in Sam's neck. A small trail of blood ran down around his neck and into the back of his shirt.

"So what are you?" Dean hissed. A fleck of saliva landed on Sam's cheek. "Demon? Shape shifter?"

"Dean," Sam pleaded, "I'm Sam. I'm your brother. It's me, honestly. Look, if I was a demon—I'm covered in holy water right now. I should be in agony, but I'm not." There was real fear in his eyes. But what was he scared of? Being killed by his brother? Or being found out for what he was?

"It didn't work on my dad, either," dismissed Dean. "I'm sure plenty of you S-O-Bs can resist holy water. It doesn't matter. I've got lots of other neat tricks I can use. But I'll let you live if you tell me what's going on in London."

"I _am_ Sam!" insisted the other man. "You have to believe me! Dean, I am _right here_."

Dean's defenses broke down as he glared down at his brother. He couldn't go through with this. He never was strong enough to choose himself over Sam. Anyway, what if it really was him? What if London was a trick?

"How am I supposed to trust you?" spat Dean.

"You want proof? Fine." Sam closed his eyes. "Hey, Castiel. Dean's kind of about to kill me, you gotta help me out. Come on, Cas."

There was a heartbeat of silence from above, perhaps two. Then:

"I'm here." The voice, impossibly deep, came from the back of the room. Dean looked up to see the trenchcoat-clad angel standing as if he had always been there.

Sam craned his neck to address the angel. "You can see demons, right? Am I possessed?"

Cas studied Sam for a tense moment. Silence dominated. Dean was hyper-aware of Sam breathing underneath him, of the blood pounding in his own ears. _If he's a fake, I'll kill him. I will. I can do this._

_I hope I'm strong enough to do this._

Then the moment passed, and Cas looked at Dean. "Whatever was the cause of your argument, Sam is not a demon."

"Could still be a shapeshifter," muttered Dean, pressing the silver knife closer to Sam's throat.

"You've already cut me, Dean." sighed Sam. "If I was a shifter, I'd be freaking out right about now. I'm not. So you can get off me."

Dean wasn't satisfied. "Cas. Is there any way to be sure?"

"There is one thing." Cas looked from brother to brother, as if considering the possibilities of what could have happened here. "The Enochian sigils with which I branded you two. They hide you from me, and they can't be replicated. If Sam were not himself, I would be able to sense the presence of a being in that spot. I sense no such thing now, and certainly not any creature."

Dean and Cas locked eyes for what seemed like ages. Finally, Dean nodded, flicking his gaze down to Sam. "Okay. Fine."

He released his grip, and Sam stood up, rubbing at the nick on his neck.

Sam straightened his shirt and looked around at them both. "Now will you tell me what the hell is going on?"

"Yes," added Cas, "I'd like to know what had you two at each other's throats. Again."

"You'll be the first. Just as soon as I know myself," said Dean, who was already reaching for his phone.

* * *

_The TARDIS—time unknown_

Rose Tyler's phone rang just as the Doctor was beginning to land. The caller ID read DEAN, or at least it would if the TARDIS had stopped shaking long enough for her to focus on the readout. "Can you quiet it down a second, Doctor?" she yelled. "I've got a call!"

"Sorry, Rose," the Doctor replied. "I'm taking her around the Middle Ages and you know how bumpy those can be. Got to keep an eye on it—woah!" The TARDIS lurched as he frantically pulled levers and spun dials. "Easy there, girl!"

Rose tried not to hit herself on the mouth with the camera phone as the ship continued its turbulent descent. She held on to the console and pressed the speaker to her ear. "Yeah?" she yelled.

"Rose?"

"In the flesh!"

"It's Dean." said the man on the other end. "Dean Winchester. Is _he_ there?"

Rose glanced over at the Doctor, who was still concentrated on not crashing his ship. "Just a bit busy at the moment, can I take a message?"

The Doctor heard that. He looked up at his companion and grinned for half a second before the TARDIS gave another painful lurch.

Dean continued, unaware of the condition his friends were in. "There's something weird going on—we wondered if you could drop by for a visit. Just to check something out. It's probably nothing, but we figure we're better off safe than sorry."

"Sure! Where d'you need us? And when?" asked Rose.

Dean gave the date. "We'll be in London, I think. Sherlock's place. You remember where it is?"

"Sure do. Great flat. Mrs. Hudson's got the best biscuits."

"Yeah, well, meet us there tomorrow morning, all right?"

There was something strange in his tone, but then again the Winchesters never called just to chat. "Dean, what is it?"

"Something weird, Rose. And I don't think it's demons. Just—get here, okay?"

"Sure thing, Mr. Winchester." Rose saluted even though Dean couldn't see her. "We'll be there."

She signed off and hung up just as the ship _vworp_'d to a halt. "See?" said the Doctor proudly, patting one of the pillars that ringed the console. "It's all in the wrist."

"You'll have to teach me sometime," giggled Rose.

"Yes," continued the Doctor, "but right now, outside those doors, are the Nineteen Waterfalls of the Casagouli. Never before seen by human eyes."

He reached for his coat, but Rose put out a hand to stop him. "Doctor, wait. We have to go to London." His eyes met hers. They questioned. "Dean Winchester. That's who was calling. He needs our help."

"Dean Winchester? Then why are we going to London?" asked the Doctor. "I thought the hunter boys were strictly American."

"They are," agreed Rose, "which is how we know there's something very wrong."

The Time Lord grinned, running a hand through his hair. "Well, in that case, we'd better hurry," he said. "Don't want to miss all the fun." And then he turned on the spot and raced back to the console, flipping the TARDIS into overdrive. Rose whooped as they took off once more, flying through the vortex toward London and whatever terror lay within.


	2. Chapter 2: A Meeting

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before I start this (admittedly very long) chapter, it would probably help if I gave you all a context in which to place our heroes. As far as character arcs are concerned, this story occurs somewhere between "The Age of Steel" and the Season 2 finale of _Doctor Who_, between "A Scandal in Belgravia" and "The Hounds of Baskerville" for _Sherlock_, and sometime between "Changing Channels" and "Hammer of the Gods" for _Supernatural_.**

**Let's choose to ignore the contradictions this causes if we assume that _Sherlock_ and _Supernatural_ occur in real-time.**

* * *

_London, England—10:00 PM_

It was Mrs. Hudson who answered Dean's knock at 221 Baker Street. She opened the door and stared up at him, clearly questioning the presence of three bedraggled young men at her home.

Sam could almost hear Dean's let's-seem-nice-for-the-citizens smile as he spoke. "Hello, Mrs. Hudson? I'm Dean Winchester." He pointed at his companions with one thumb, nearly jabbing Sam in the neck. "This is my brother, Sam, and our friend, Cas."

Peering over Dean's shoulder, Sam made eye contact with the elderly woman. He waved in greeting. "Hi."

"You're more of Sherlock's friends, I suppose?" Mrs. Hudson's tone was warm, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. She held the door with a firm hand as if ready to slam it closed at any moment. "He didn't tell me you three were Americans."

Sam felt a twinge of pity. Sherlock had told them that his landlady might be skittish around strangers, especially American strangers. No one had asked why. Considering her tenants' line of work, it was probably better that way.

Dean was about to speak, but Sam took over the conversation. "I guess he really didn't think it was important, ma'am. You know how Sherlock is. He doesn't consider stuff like that."

Mrs. Hudson eyed him for a terse moment, but then she opened the door wider and stepped back from the threshold. "All right. Come on in, then. Flat B, it's right upstairs."

The two men and one angel stepped inside. Neither Sam nor Dean informed her that they had, in fact, been here before. She seemed like a sweet woman, and it wasn't her fault she didn't know, as she had been on vacation the last time the Winchesters had called at Baker Street.

Sam pushed away the memories of last time before they could start to crowd him. That job had cost them far too much, which was probably why he felt as though his feet got heavier with every stair he climbed. Nothing was ever simple when Sherlock Holmes got involved with Team Free Will. What if this job was even worse than when they had first met?

Sam pushed that away, too. He couldn't worry about it now. He was here, in London, and he was going to fix whatever was wrong. That was his job. Whatever happened as a result, they could deal with it. They always did.

As the foursome continued up the steps, Sam heard those already present in apartment B arguing in high, cheery voices.

"Doctor, there is no such person as Professor Time Lord!"

"Well, then, you don't have the right version!"

"As long as you aren't playing as Mr. Green, he's mine."

"Sherlock, we've already gone over this; you're not playing, it's bad enough we have to pry the knife out of the board from last time."

Here, Sam reached the landing. As he entered the apartment, the talking stopped, and the heads of Sherlock, John, Rose, and the Doctor turned to look at the newcomers. Dean and Cas eased into the room behind Sam, fidgeting just inside the door as a tutting Mrs. Hudson addressed her tenants. She was still halfway down the steps, however, and the echoes of her voice in the hall somewhat dampened her stern tone.

"Sherlock, you've got more guests," she called. "You keep it down in here, now, or you'll have the whole street banging on our doors."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Hudson," grinned the Doctor. "Quiet as mice, that's us."

Sam stepped inside and glanced around the apartment, which had changed little since the last time he had visited. Perhaps there were a few more obscure books thrown around, but it was the same homey, cluttered space he remembered it to be. A skull shared mantel space with piles of overdue bills. Microscopes and test tubes dominated the kitchen counters.

A smile threatened to turn the corner of Sam's mouth as he realized how strange such an apartment would seem to normal people. Then again, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson weren't exactly normal. None of them were.

The others were crowded around the coffee table, on which was sprawled some kind of game board. John and Sherlock were seated in their customary spots by the fireplace. The Doctor and Rose had made themselves comfortable by pulling chairs from the kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson went back downstairs, muttering something about bachelor parties.

"Oh good, you're here," said Sherlock. "Now we can get to business."

John shot his roommate a pointed look. "He _means_, how was your flight, and you must be famished, do you want some tea?" He was already up and on his way to the kitchen.

Sam smiled. "I'll take some, thanks. And we don't really fly these days. You could say we picked up some transportation of our own."

Before anyone could ask what that meant, Rose stood up and quick-stepped over to Sam, wrapping him in a tight hug. "Sam, how are you?" she asked. "Not getting into too much trouble, I hope."

Actually smiling now, Sam leaned down as much as he could to return her embrace. "Of course not. Nothing Dean and I can't handle." _Except the Apocalypse, that is._ Flashes of the task he had left behind in the U.S. flitted through Sam's mind. But Rose didn't need to know about that.

Rose let go of him after a moment and turned to his brother. "_Dean_," she said warmly, hugging him as well. "Got that business with your soul sorted out, did you? Good. I would have missed ya."

"Oh, you know us," said Dean. "Winchesters! Cheating death at every turn."

The English girl pulled away from him then, and that's when she noticed Cas standing behind the brothers. "And who's this? You didn't have another brother hidden away somewhere, did you?"

Dean looked like he'd been kicked. "What?" he spluttered. "Uh—no—Cas is, uh, not our brother, no. Not him. No, he's, um—"

"My name is Castiel," Cas interrupted. "I am an angel of the Lord."

Sam watched the others carefully as he said this. He certainly hadn't taken the news of angels gracefully, and he wondered how the others would handle it. The Doctor seemed the least shocked, though his mouth tightened in what could only be called concern. John had returned from the kitchen and now stared unabashedly at Cas, a cup of tea tipping dangerously in his hand. When he finally caught himself, he shifted his weight and coughed, obviously attempting to regain his composure.

It was Sherlock whom Sam was most interested in. A slight rise of the eyebrows was the only hint that the detective felt any surprise at all. He put his hands together as if praying and pressed the tips to his mouth. Thinking, Sam guessed. Weighing the possibilities. Filing away the new information.

As for Rose, her emotions were written on her face. She didn't believe Castiel for a second. In the end, she was the first to speak. "An angel?" she asked, smirking. "Really?"

"Yes," replied Cas stiffly. "I have been accompanying the Winchesters for some time now. They have long been involved in the affairs of Heaven."

"I thought angels were the chubby little babies with the harps."

The Doctor nudged Rose with his foot, a movement that Sam noticed instantly. When she looked over at him, he shook his head slightly.

"She's kidding, of course," the Doctor said quickly to Cas. "We're _very _respectful of you angels, aren't we, Rose?"

Cas stared the two of them down. "You are worried I am offended. Don't be. You are Dean's friends. I will tolerate your unbelief."

"No, Cas is cool," nodded Sam, accepting the tea John offered him and taking a sip. "Seriously. He does the whole make-you-burn-from-the-inside thing, but he saves that for the bad guys, you know?"

Dean managed to chuckle without showing the barest hint of a smile. "Except when he doesn't."

What followed was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Rose and the Doctor stared at their shoes, while Cas stared straight ahead, seemingly unfazed by the encounter.

"Anyway," continued Sam, "that's why we didn't have to fly here. Cas kind of travels under his own power. Teleportation, I guess." He sat down on the couch closest to the door. Dean followed suit, but Cas remained standing in the corner, still uncomfortable with his new surroundings. Sam was reminded of a cat who had just been brought home from the pet shop. "It's better that way," he finished. "Dean doesn't do well on conventional flights."

Following the angelic revelation, Rose had gone back to the coffee table and busied herself with packing up the board game, but now she paused her work and looked up at him. "You're tellin' me. Guess who had to clean up after 'im last time he took a hop in the TARDIS?" Her head rolled to one side until she was glaring, eyebrow raised, at her partner. "And guess who didn't help?"

"Well, when you learn how to pilot the most powerful ship in the universe, I'll be happy to mop." The Doctor grinned as Rose hit him on the arm.

Sam sipped at his tea again, and Dean glanced over at the china cup with annoyance. He shifted awkwardly in his seat. "You got anything stronger than tea? A decent coffee, even?"

"Sorry, no luck," said John apologetically.

Dean considered this for a moment, then shrugged, pulling a thermos out of his backpack and gulping from it.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted," mused Sherlock, "why don't we actually talk about the reason I called you to London in the first place?" His gaze was dark as he swept it around the room, taking them all in. "This latest case of mine is something even I can't figure out. At this very moment Sam Winchester's body is lying in the morgue."

The announcement rang through the room, stilling the atmosphere. Everyone tried their hardest not to look at Sam. Everyone failed miserably.

"Sherlock's right," John said. "Yesterday I saw you dead, Sam. Dead. And now you're telling me that wasn't you?"

Sam shrugged. He and Bobby had spent the time between John's phone call and now researching anything that could imitate his body, but had turned up nothing concrete. He was as mystified as the rest of them. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"I can confirm that," said Cas suddenly, pointing at Sam. "This is the real Sam Winchester."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Cas, we got that. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The Doctor grinned. "I like him."

Sherlock cleared his throat. Sam could sense him getting impatient with every sidebar conversation this group had. He was a man of work, Sam remembered. Social engagements didn't suit him the way skulls and microscopes did.

"All right, fine." The Doctor turned to the detective with a curious glint in his eye. "Why don't you tell us everything that's happened from the start? We all have different bits of the story, and I think it would help all of us to hear it straight from you, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock locked eyes with the Doctor for a couple of seconds. "Very well," he said, then began a rapid-fire account of the previous day's investigations.

"At eleven forty-five yesterday morning, I received a text from Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, who asked me to go to a small apartment building on the south end of London to investigate a homicide. Seeing as my morning was free, I roused John and made my way to said apartment building via cab.

"When we arrived at the scene, we were shown to the body by one Detective Anderson, a rather simplistic and ignorant member of the force. It was no wonder that he had called me, as he could not collect evidence if it was labeled by the murderer himself—"

John cleared his throat. "Ah, Sherlock?"

Sherlock, who had been staring into the fireplace to give his tale, turned his head sharply to meet his flatmate's eye. "What? You told me to put some of my own thoughts into it—"

"Yes, Sherlock, when you're writing about it, to make it more human-sounding. But I don't think you need to, er, do that now."

The detective shrugged and turned back to the fireplace. Everyone else stared at their teacups—or, in Dean's case, thermos—and waited for Sherlock to continue.

"The body was located in a set of rooms on the third floor. The entrance to the flat in which it was located was directly across from the steps. From there, Anderson led us through a small living room to a short hallway. The first doorway to the left brought us to what I imagine would be a bedroom, were it occupied. The windows, two of them, faced east.

"I observed immediately that the cause of death had been stab wounds to the back of the torso. Eight such wounds existed, by my count, each of them deep enough to cause massive internal damage and blood loss. The wounds were all dealt by someone right-handed with a two-edged knife. Judging from the volume of blood visible, I deduced that the attacker had failed to hit anything vital and had thus left the victim alive to bleed out.

"After ascertaining this, I examined the area around the body. No signs of struggle were present, other than the stab wounds. The floor, which was made of wood, was clean and free of marks. No doors in the building showed any evidence of forced entry, and the windows had remained secured throughout the night.

"It was at this point that I took a closer look at the body itself. No dirt or skin was visible under the fingernails; in fact, the entire person seemed remarkably clean. His shoes were worn but well cared for, as were his clothes. He was clearly someone who spent much of his time on the road, who had a physically demanding job, and who cared a great deal about keeping up appearances despite his irregular income and nomadic lifestyle. He carried nothing in his pockets. It was then that I looked at his face and recognized you, Sam."

Everyone looked once more at the Winchester in question, who set his tea down and nodded at them all. "And that's when you contacted us."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Obviously."

"So where's the body now?"

"The morgue at St. Bart's. I told Molly I would have people in to identify it, and she agreed to hold it as long as needed."

Cas' voice rumbled like thunder from the doorway. "Who is Molly?"

"A friend of ours," explained John. "She works in the morgue, helps us out on cases."

"Got a thing for death, huh?" Dean leaned forward in his seat. "Sounds like my kind of girl."

Now it was Sam's turn to roll his eyes. "Every girl is your kind of girl, Dean," he muttered, getting an elbow in the side for his trouble.

"So. There is your problem," mused Sherlock, nudging them back on track. "I am the world's only consulting detective. I have solved more cases than anyone at the Yard, and yet it is to you I turn in times such as this. Something strange is going on here, something far out of the realm of the mundane. Sam and Dean, you are experts in the field of ghosts and other supernatural creatures, and I don't think I have to explain that you have a rather personal connection to the case. Doctor, Rose, you've seen things the rest of us can only imagine, and your cunning could be of great use to us.

"We've all worked together in the past. Now, I'm asking for your help. So, will you take the case?"

There was a moment of silence in which everyone took in Sherlock's words. It was true, they worked well as a group, but for all of them to be brought to the same place usually meant the kind of danger that even they couldn't find on a daily basis. Sam stared into his tea, while Dean fiddled with a pocketknife. Rose spoke up first.

"Yeah. We're in. Me and the Doctor both. It's the least we could do after what happened last time."

"Us, too," agreed Sam, with a sideways look at his brother. "It's my body you guys found. Whatever this is, it's got something to do with me. And me and Dean, we stick together. So we'll help. Can't say the same for Cas, though."

Cas stepped forward. He spoke to John and Sherlock, but eyed the Doctor while he did it. "You people interest me. I'll help, too."

The atmosphere of the room shifted. That was it. Whatever happened, whatever danger was sure to follow, they were committed. None of them could turn back now. It was time to get down to business.

Rose let out a breath. "So, what do we do? I mean, we're all here, that's a start, but we need a plan. How do we go about figuring this out, whatever it is?"

"I'd like to see that body, if you don't mind," the Doctor replied. "Get a closer look."

"Me too," said Sam. "See if it's really me."

John nodded. "The morgue'll be closed by now, but we'll go first thing tomorrow."

"One moment, John." Sherlock held up a hand. "Seeing as our party is rather large and hostile-looking, it's doubtful that any hospital employee is going to let us in to see their bodies. Therefore, I advise that we go at night, when everyone is gone. It'll be locked, of course, but that should be no problem for the likes of us, especially with the Doctor's remarkable screwdriver to open the way."

He turned to the Doctor, who winked conspiratorially. "Just as long as we don't need to get past anything wooden," said the latter, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of his coat's inside pocket. "It doesn't—"

"It doesn't do wood," Sam cut in. "Yeah. We know."

* * *

_St. Bart's—11:30 PM_

But for the muffled footfalls of the group's feet on tiles, the hospital's morgue level was silent. Sherlock and John led the way for the rest of them, with the Doctor right behind. The latter held his sonic screwdriver aloft, having just bypassed the first set of locks.

After him walked Rose, who held his hand. She was rather frightened, the Doctor knew, by the thought of a hundred recently dead bodies sharing the same space as herself. The hand was more for her comfort than for his enjoyment. Still, he relished the sensation. Humans ran at a higher temperature than Gallifreyans, and the Doctor found Rose's heat comforting.

Following Rose came Dean, then Sam, and last of all, Cas, who was finding the whole exercise in silence fascinating.

The group came to the last door that barred them from the morgue's storage area. "Doctor," whispered John, pointing at the keypad next to the steel door.

The Doctor nodded and raised his screwdriver. It whirred and glowed in his hand, and within seconds a green light on the keypad switched on. With a small beep and a hiss of pneumatics, the door swung inward.

Inside were walls that didn't really count as walls. They were row upon row of drawer-like slabs, each one concealing a body behind its neatly labeled gray cover. Rose clung closer to the Doctor as she stepped over the threshold.

Sherlock was already checking the labels on the slabs, looking for the number Molly had given him. Within two minutes, he found it halfway down the length of the room. The drawer was relatively close to the ground, so when he slid it open the entire group had a good view of Sam Winchester's corpse.

When the face finally emerged from the shadows, even Sam and Dean couldn't help a sharp intake of breath. The Doctor looked around for the angel, Castiel, but he wasn't with the group. Instead, he stood guard by the door to the room, watching them all with head cocked. _Some all-powerful being._

"That's me, all right," affirmed Sam. "But how the hell...?"

"Why do you think we called you guys?" asked John. "We don't know."

"Let me take a look," suggested the Doctor. Sherlock moved aside to let him get close, and the Time Lord activated the sonic screwdriver once more, running it along the ample length of the Sam-body. After a couple of passes, he inspected the screwdriver, reading data that was invisible to the humans around him.

What he saw made his breath stop. It was like nothing he had ever seen. The Doctor's hearts sped up as he looked from the screwdriver to the corpse and back again, making sure he had it right.

"Oh," he breathed. "Oh, this is _brilliant_." He looked down at Rose and gave her a big smile. She smiled right back and squeezed his hand. She didn't completely understand just yet, but the Doctor's excitement was infectious.

"Why?" asked Sherlock, surely anxious about being a step behind. "What is it?"

"No idea." The Doctor grinned around at them all, but they just stared back in confusion. Didn't they see it? Couldn't they understand how exciting this all was?

"Great," muttered Dean. "Mind filling us in on what's so _brilliant_, then?"

The Doctor pointed at the Sam-body's torso. "This body," he began, "is not human. Not even close. It's an excellent copy, I'll grant you that, everything's in the right place. But its energy levels are off the scale. If any human absorbed this much stuff, he'd disintegrate. Even when Rose was piloting the Time Vortex, she had some time. This is...something else." He let go of Rose's hand for a moment in order to run his own fingers through his hair, making it even more disheveled than usual.

"Massive amounts of energy?" clarified John. "Shouldn't it be, I dunno, glowing or something?"

"Glowing? Oh, no. See, you humans, you can only process so much. There are whole spectrums you're completely blind to. I bet the angel can see this, though." The Doctor turned to the angel in question, who still hesitated by the door. "Castiel! Come take a look."

It took only a moment for Castiel to join up with the rest of them. They all parted to give him access to the Sam-body. He looked down.

And recoiled instantly.

"Gabriel!" he hissed.

Dean and Sam had their weapons out in a second, aiming them in the Sam-body's direction. "Everybody get back," warned Dean. "Now!"

The group obeyed without question. They all had too much respect for each other not to realize when one of them had more knowledge of the danger they were in.

"Dean? Sam?" asked John. "What's that mean? What's Gabriel?"

"I think you mean _who_," said a new voice. It echoed around the room and seemed to emanate from the Sam-body. But the body's lips hadn't moved.

Castiel's jaw clenched. "He's an archangel. One of the most powerful in the garrison."

Dean snarled, but his pistol shook. "Give it up, Gabriel," he said. "Or are you going to skip out right when the game gets good?"

Rose pointed to the Sam-body's face, but the Doctor had already noticed what was happening to its features: they were melting, shifting, and coming together again, like a child's clay creation being wadded up and then repurposed. The rest of the body followed suit, and within seconds the image of Sam was gone, replaced by a man with long blond hair and glittering eyes.

The new man—Gabriel, the Doctor assumed—blinked in the dim light of the morgue. He sat up on the slab and looked around at his audience.

The Doctor thought about that word: _audience_. A strange one to use, certainly, but it seemed oddly appropriate in the context of this little man who radiated power. He certainly gave the Doctor the feeling of watching a carefully crafted show. This was someone who wanted all eyes on him, although the Doctor got the feeling that Gabriel didn't much care what happened after that point.

"Thanks for opening that for me, bud," he said to Sherlock, indicating the slab. "It was getting kind of cramped in there." He yawned and stretched his arms, his back arching like a cat's.

"Gabriel." It was Castiel, who still remained close by. "What do you want with these people?"

"What are you doing here in the first place?" asked Sam. "I thought you'd be lying low after coming out to your brothers."

Gabriel winked. "Call it a favor for a friend, Sammy. As for what I want, no need to rush things. Let's sit back, relax. Light a campfire. Swap stories."

Almost faster than could be seen, Sam shoved Gabriel back down on the slab and held his knife to the angel's throat. "What do you want with us, you demented egomaniac?" he snarled. "What's the point of bringing us here? What happened to making us fight your wars?"

Suddenly, Gabriel's hand came up to push against Sam's chest. The younger Winchester flew backward, hitting the opposite wall with a crash of metal. He sank to the floor, winded but conscious. Gabriel pushed himself back into a sitting position on the slab. He brushed off his shirt as though he had just had a little mishap rather than thrown an adult male human across a room. The rest of the group just watched, powerless to react. Even the Doctor was unsure what this new angel was capable of. This was a fight for the Winchesters, not them.

"Don't ever presume to know what I want, Sam Winchester." Gabriel's eyes had turned from cheery to hard in an instant. Fire raged in them. Even the Doctor felt a twinge of panic, looking at those eyes. "People change. Or people aren't who you thought they were. Or people are different people altogether. It's all in how you play it."

"Yeah?" said Dean. "Well, we don't have time to play your games, angel man."

Gabriel smiled and looked up. His gaze bored into Dean.

"On the contrary."

And he snapped his fingers.


	3. Chapter 3: An Enemy

_Unknown location—11:50 PM_

Sherlock blinked, suddenly disoriented. This was an unusual state of mind for him, so he looked around to get his bearings. St. Bart's was gone from around them, replaced by a dark but spacious warehouse. There were no lights, but enough moonlight shone in from various high-placed windows that it was only a moment until Sherlock's eyes adjusted. On four sides, cinderblock walls cut them off from the outside world. The only door was across the room, and standing between them and it was this new "angel", Gabriel. The warehouse was empty apart from a few dusty crates in one corner behind the group.

Someone else was here, too—someone who was for the moment only a darker shadow to Gabriel's left. But Sherlock thought he recognized the shape.

Gabriel opened his arms wide. "Welcome to the playroom," he said, grinning. "This place, I'm afraid, is the last thing you'll see in this world. Sorry it's such a dump, I was meaning to spruce it up a little, but..." He shrugged, mock remorse coloring his sharp features. "I just never got around to it."

"Gabriel!" said Sam, his voice barely biting back anger. Though rage was not a rare emotion for the American to display, Sherlock deduced that the Winchesters must have a history with this man, and not necessarily a good one. "Why are you doing this? What happened to your precious neutrality?"

"Old news, Samantha," smirked Gabriel. "I'm a whole different guy. Anyway, this isn't about angels or demons or even the Apocalypse. Cassy over here is old news. I've got a different crew now."

Out of the shadows, the mystery man came to meet them. He wore a tailored suit and a hungry expression. Sherlock's worst fears were confirmed.

"Hello," said Jim Moriarty. "Nice of you to...drop by."

Sherlock felt John tense up beside him. "Moriarty," the soldier murmured.

"Oh, you remember me, Johnny boy!" Moriarty grinned maniacally. "How good to see you again, although you did look better in that jacket I gave you..."

Sherlock stepped between them, protecting John as much as stopping him from doing something stupid. "What's all this about, Jim? What's got you teamed up with an angel? I thought you preferred to stay inside the mundane realm."

Moriarty's snakelike eyes caught the group's every movement. They flickered over to where the Doctor was pulling out his screwdriver, then back to pin down Sherlock. "Well, that's just it, Mr. Holmes. The mundane world is just soooo _mundane_." He glanced over at Gabriel, whose expression was inscrutable even to Sherlock's trained eye. "Besides, I've got a client who is _very_ interested in the evening's outcome."

"Oh?" asked Sherlock. "And who's that?"

The other man shook his head. He was just as Sherlock remembered him from the pool: every movement calculated, his eyes taking in every detail, his voice jumping from high to low notes as he spoke. "That's for me to know, I'm afraid. No matter. We're behind schedule." He glanced at Gabriel. "How are we doing?"

"Just called him," answered the archangel. "He'll be here."

"Doctor? What's going on?" asked Rose.

"That's a very good question," the Doctor answered. He took a step forward, taking the lead of the group. He stared their captors straight in the eyes and spoke in a voice that echoed around the empty warehouse.

"You don't know me, either of you, but know this: I am from Gallifrey. I am the last of the Time Lords. I survived the Time War. I have seen empires rise and fall and rise again and you two are nothing compared to the things I've defeated. You'll want to be very afraid. You're scaring my friends, and that's enough to make me dangerous. Now explain yourselves. As you can see, you're rather outnumbered, and I'm sure that whatever powers the two of you have, they're rather paltry compared to the likes of us."

It was an impressive display. Sherlock doubted even he could have spoken more powerfully. Some errant draft from the distant doorway caught the edge of the Doctor's long coat as he finished his speech, and it flapped around his legs as the final words resonated. He seemed powerful, confident, in control. But Sherlock knew that the Doctor didn't mention Gallifrey or the Time War easily. He was grasping at straws, trying everything he could to avoid this inevitable confrontation. Sherlock didn't blame him. Beings claiming to be angels and transporting people at will? It was enough to scare anyone.

Unfortunately, the angel in question didn't seem nearly as fazed as the Doctor might have hoped. Gabriel stepped forward, snapping his fingers again. Sherlock fully expected to be transported, but instead, blurred and vaguely blue forms separated themselves from the angel's body. There were dozens of them, right after the other, and they slid around the group of heroes, forming a full circle of glitching humanoid shapes made of nothing at all. In another second, the forms had solidified into copies of Gabriel himself, albeit slightly transparent copies. They stood shoulder to shoulder. Their intention was clear: Sherlock and his friends could not escape.

Moriarty and Gabriel—the real Gabriel—still stood in front of them. Gabriel smiled. "You were saying something about being outnumbered?"

Sherlock's heart started to race, and for the first time that night, he felt goosebumps popping up on his arms. Strange. He didn't get scared. The fight-or-flight reflex did not rise up in him often, as his logical mind was able to keep him calm in every situation. But he was terrified now, in a primal, animal way. Every fiber of his being was screaming in protest at this ring of wickedly grinning men, insisting that it could not be real, that this was impossible. But Sherlock knew that when the Doctor and the Winchesters were around, nothing was impossible.

Gabriel was speaking to the Doctor. As he did so, the other versions of him spoke as well, creating an eerie unison that echoed from everywhere around Sherlock. "Buddy, I am way worse than whatever nightmare aliens you've faced, I guarantee it. But, if I'm totally honest here, I'm just the appetizer. It's our employer you should really be scared of. He's got the mama powers."

Dean looked around, inspecting the circle of men, looking for a way through. "They've got us covered," he said, rather unnecessarily in Sherlock's opinion. Dean looked toward the real Gabriel, whose slightly more prominent opaqueness differentiated him from the rest. "Cas? You got that blade?"

Castiel stepped forward from behind Sherlock. From within his coat sleeve he produced a long, thin, silver sword. "Always."

Dean took the weapon from Castiel and spun back to Gabriel, lowering the blade at him. "All right, Gabe," he muttered, "I don't care how many of you there are. You can still die." He paused. "Again."

"Oh yeah, I heard about that. Seriously," muttered the circle, "how many times are you going to kill me?"

Something was wrong. Sherlock could tell, of course, but you didn't need to be a genius to figure it out. The Gabriels weren't fazed at all by the sword in Dean's hand, though he obviously felt it could do some good. They just looked on, that same sardonic smile plastered over their identical faces, as he charged straight at the original man.

"No!" yelled the Doctor, leaping forward with a hand outstretched to stop his friend. But he was too late. Dean's blade made contact with his target. Sherlock hadn't expected it to go in, but the blade entered up to the hilt. There it stopped, thrust deep into the center of Gabriel's chest.

The elder Winchester looked into Gabriel's eyes. His hands never left the blade.

But nothing happened. The copy of Gabriel still stood, and still grinned up at Dean. Beside them, Moriarty did nothing.

Dean's shoulders slackened just a fraction. It was enough to tell Sherlock that things were not going as planned.

Then something crackled, and a pulse of white energy blasted out from Gabriel's body. It traveled through the sword to Dean's hands and finally to Dean himself, flinging him backward. He landed hard on his shoulder in the center of the circle and rolled onto his back, his eyelids fluttering, his arm strangely angled.

"Dean!" Sam rushed to his brother's side and checked for vitals. Dean was now unconscious, but still visibly breathing. Sam shook him by the shoulders, even slapped at his face. "Dean, come on, don't do this now!"

All around the circle, the copies clapped their hands together as the real Gabriel spoke. "Oh, I was hoping you would fall for that," he said. Then he—and the blade with him—flickered and vanished.

Too astonished to react, not one person attempted to leave the circle through the hole left by Gabriel's departure. As it turned out, that window was all too short, for in another few seconds a brand-new copy of the angel flickered into place where the old one had been. The circle was once again unbroken.

The new Gabriel had the same vaguely translucent quality as the rest of the copies. Sherlock quickly inspected all of the others, pivoting on his heel, trying to find where the real one had got to. He had to have moved, Sherlock deduced. Had to have switched places with one of the copies at the moment the blade impacted. Of course, there was the chance that he wasn't here at all and they were all copies, but Gabriel was a showman. He liked the attention. He would never be absent for such an act as this, even if he did have a hundred more eyes ready to document the proceedings.

Around him, the ring of Gabriels noticed his movements. "Trying to figure it out, Sherlock Holmes?" they said together. "Although I'm quite honored to have you with us this evening, you won't find the real me." They spread their arms, making the circle even more complete while intensifying the appearance of a well-rehearsed routine. "We're all the real me!"

With that, the translucent quality disappeared from them all. Sherlock almost felt dizzy as he faced a suddenly and undeniably solid wall of Gabriels. They all seemed real, so none of them were. Or maybe he was telling the truth, and all of them were. As if to further prove Gabriel's point, the copies began to shift—translucence to solidity and back again, an endless parade of glitching and shifting bluish forms with the blue fading in and out as they all at once appeared both real and not.

Sherlock turned to John, who seemed just as lost as Sherlock himself was starting to feel. Gabriel was right. There was no way to know. No way to fight this. Even if they did pick the right Gabriel, he doubted they could find a way to hurt him without that silver blade.

In the center of the circle, Sam was still trying to revive Dean, calling his name over and over again. "Dean? Dean!"

"Oh, he'll be fine," drawled Gabriel. "Just got a bit of a shock, is all."

Sam looked up with hatred in his eyes. "As soon as I get out of here, I swear I'll—"

"Who says you're getting out?" asked the archangel. "I told you, the road stops here. For all of you."

"Oh yeah?" asked Rose, suddenly bolder. "Big talk for the little man. The way I see it, the most you've done is surround us and knock one of us out. Not exactly a death sentence."

While they were talking, John had pulled his gun out of his belt. He took two steps forward, straight towards the surrounding Gabriels, before Sherlock could stop him. He fired twice, in opposite directions, but both bullets simply went straight through the copies and ricocheted off the cinderblock walls behind.

Sherlock laid a hand on the shorter man's shoulder. "No more," he warned. "You could empty your magazine and still not hit the right one. Save your ammunition for a time when you can be sure it will do us some good."

John seemed reluctant, but after a moment he nodded and replaced the weapon. He was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid.

"Look," Gabriel said to Rose, "I think we've made it very clear who has the upper hand here. So why don't you let the grown-ups talk?"

Moriarty rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, Gabriel. Stand down, angel man."

The Gabriels shot a glance at his partner. For a moment, it looked like he was going to protest again, but at last they nodded at the master criminal.

"That's better," cooed Moriarty. He turned back to Rose, who was still staring defiantly at them, and addressed them all.

"There are things in this universe—and outside it—that you cannot imagine, forces greater than even that of Gallifrey or Heaven. Some time ago, I found something here in this very building that led me to discover one of those forces: an individual with more power than I had ever seen. He has the power to rip apart entire dimensions. And he was looking for someone."

Moriarty shifted his gaze to the Doctor, and the implication was clear. "However, powerful as he may be, his influence in this world is still limited, and so he enlisted my help in locating you, Doctor."

Sherlock couldn't help but interrupt. "But the consulting criminal does nothing for nothing, correct?"

Moriarty winked at his nemesis. "Excellent deduction. I had priorities of my own. It was only natural that we make a trade. I help him get rid of the last Time Lord, and he allows me to get rid of my own enemy." The snakelike eyes bored into Sherlock.

"And what about the angel?" asked Sherlock. "I'm not inclined to believe that you would delve into the supernatural realm unless it were absolutely necessary."

"Gabriel was just the icing on the cake, really. Once we began planning for you two, we met him. It was beautiful: all the most prominent so-called _heroes_ of our age, and we were poised to take them all out. Once you're gone, Gabriel and I can do what we will, and our benefactor will have all the payoff he wants."

"Who is your benefactor, exactly?" asked the Doctor, puzzled. "He claims to know me, but there's only one man bent on destroying me, and he wouldn't be willing to share the profits with an angel and a human."

"My dear Doctor," smiled Moriarty, "when did I say he was a man?" He turned and began to pace along the outside of the circle. Another Gabriel sprang into being to fill the space left behind. "But I'm afraid that's all I can say. You'll just have to wait for the show to begin."

But the Doctor was no longer listening. He was flicking the sonic screwdriver all around them, the machine whirring in his hand. He pointed it at the closest cinderblock wall, directly behind Sherlock, and the whirring seemed to intensify. "Strange...there's something over there." He glanced at the screwdriver's readout. "This isn't angel power."

"I could have told you that," Cas boomed.

"No," continued the Doctor, "this is something else, something ancient. Something with a tie to that area over there, near that wall. Something..." He tapped the screwdriver against his leg a few times, then held it up to the meager light coming from the high warehouse windows. "Something big. It's not even of this universe." His mouth dropped open in a perfect O and he ran his hand through his hair again. "Oh! The Void!"

Moriarty was regarding him with a curious look. "Have you figured it out yet, Time Lord?"

The Doctor looked him square in the eye. "You, Mr. Moriarty, are gambling with dangerous forces. Why would a fabrivore seek the help of a human like you?"

The man's eyes were harder than ever. "He's hungry. And he figures you owe him, after the last time."

John interrupted from next to Sherlock. "What's a fabrivore? Why are we here, Doctor?"

The Doctor didn't break Moriarty's gaze as he answered. "It's a transdimensional being. They only survive in the Void—the gap between universes, the space between the spaces. It feeds on the energy left behind when something—an object, a person—travels from one universe to another."

"And that's why we're here?" snarled Sam, who had only just managed to bring his brother back to consciousness. "To be food for this thing? Why go to all the trouble? What makes us so special?"

Moriarty cocked his head to one side. "Why don't you take that one, Doctor? You seem to have all the answers."

The Doctor sighed. "Fabrivores can't affect things in the universes themselves. They are fixed to a specific point." He glanced at the warehouse around them. "For this one, it's this warehouse. Well, the space that this warehouse takes up. Usually, enough things pass by that they can get a good meal-they don't need much to stay alive. But if the supply dwindles, fabrivores start to get creative. But I've never heard of one making connections before."

Moriarty smiled. "He's not your average monster. He wanted me to go to the warehouse myself, but I managed to strike a deal with him. Now I get to appease the fabrivore and kill Sherlock Holmes in a single blow."

"You won't be killing us," interrupted Sherlock. "We'll just go to a parallel universe, if I have the facts straight."

"It's all the same to me," shrugged Moriarty. "Either way, I won't be seeing you again. Seems the Doctor doesn't have his TARDIS to save you this time around."

The Gabriels all flickered at once. "Shush. The lights are going down. Showtime," they said.

Then the Gabriels closest to the wall behind the group disappeared altogether, only to reappear—with more reinforcements—at either side of those copies that remained. The angel's shadows now formed an angelic barrier blocking off the exit. Sherlock and his friends were now forced to face the cinderblock wall that apparently housed the fabrivore.

The group of heroes turned to look where Gabriel's many fingers pointed. Something was happening to the wall. The central cinderblocks were shifting, twisting into a spiral. The ones at the center of this spiral began to crumble away, revealing behind them not the darkened streets of London but a black and empty nothingness that made Sherlock's gut twist uncomfortably.

Moriarty's smile tightened as he walked to stand directly across from his erstwhile enemy. "Bye now, Sherlock Holmes."

"Doctor?" cried Rose. "What's happening?"

But the Doctor was one step ahead, already analyzing with the screwdriver. His eyes grew wide. "It's a trans-universal portal!" he yelled over the wind that was suddenly picking up, urging them all towards the cinderblock wall. "It's opening up, it's a gateway to a parallel universe! It's how the fabrivore feeds, but I've never heard of one tearing a rift on its own before!"

"Talk to us, Doc!" cried Sam, who was helping a dazed Dean to his feet. "How screwed are we?"

"If we don't get this portal closed? Very. Even if the trip through the Void doesn't kill us, we'll be trapped in another reality forever." The Doctor grunted as the screwdriver sparked. "Castiel! Any way you can help?"

Castiel sped to the Doctor's side. "Heaven has no jurisdiction over the Void. I am not certain that my abilities will be of any use."

"You can try, can't you?"

Cas nodded and focused on the portal. Sherlock thought he saw shadowy images of wings spread across the warehouse walls behind the angel, and Castiel's eyes began to shine with white light. The angel raised a hand and began to chant in a language that even Sherlock, who had studied modern languages extensively at school, could not begin to place. Beside him, the Doctor kept his screwdriver pointed at the wall, the whirring louder than ever.

But despite the men's efforts, the portal continued to open. The last of the cinderblocks fell away to show the awful darkness of the Void. Even though they were indoors, a monstrous wind picked up and urged them toward the rift, tugging at Cas' and the Doctor's trenchcoats and forcing everyone to lean back against it or risk being thrown into another universe.

Sam and Dean clutched each other. Rose held on to the Doctor's free arm. John stood protectively in front of Sherlock, still holding his gun out in front of him as if he could shoot the fabrivore.

The wind howled and approached gale force. It was like every molecule of air was being bent to the tremendous will of the fabrivore, and even though that explanation sounded ridiculous to Sherlock, he had the creeping feeling it was rather close to the truth. Behind them, Moriarty and the Gabriels seemed completely unaffected, but Sherlock and his friends were having trouble staying on their feet. Most of them crouched low to the ground, hoping that the decreased surface area would mean less for the fabrivore's gusts to grab onto. Sherlock himself was yanked downward by the more attentive John.

But it was Sam who hesitated, Sam who looked over at his still-shaky brother to ensure that Dean would be able to hold on, Sam who forced his older sibling onto the ground before himself.

And so it was Sam who lost his footing first.


	4. Chapter 4: A Division

_The warehouse—12:13 AM_

Sam Winchester stumbled forward, then was plucked off his feet altogether. The wind hurled him, flailing, straight into the portal. He was gone in a second, with no time even for a final scream.

Dean was not so lucky. "Sammy!" he screamed. Dean looked around desperately, his eyes meeting Rose's for a second before passing over her, pleading for them to do something, anything. Rose followed his gaze, looking for the reactions of her other friends. But no one looked back at Dean. _There's nothing to be done,_ Rose realized. _Sam's gone._

Dean looked down then, and Rose saw a hardness enter his eyes. No. She knew what he was thinking. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

He met her stare. "I'm going after him!" he yelled, just barely audible above the wind.

"You can't!" cried Rose. "It's suicide!"

"I have to!" answered Dean. A tear dripped down to his chin, only to be torn into the raging swirl of the portal. "He's my brother! I _have_ to!"

He looked up to Castiel, and Rose, helpless, mimicked him. If anyone could stop Dean from this idiocy, it would be the angel, who surely knew Dean better than Rose did. Surely he would know what to say. But then Castiel simply nodded, and Rose's hopes fell. The group was being torn apart, split between universes. How many of them had to die tonight?

"Get us back, Cas," said Dean. "Find a way to get us back."

Cas nodded again. "I will," he called at last, his voice even as ever. Rose knew then that he wouldn't try to argue. If there was one thing she learned from their previous adventure, it was that nothing could separate the Winchesters for long.

With a last look at all of them, Dean turned back to the portal. Slowly, deliberately, he stood up, holding his hurt shoulder. He turned to face the line of Gabriels that still blocked the group's escape. The copies eyed him, identical smirks gracing their sharp faces. Rose shuddered as she looked back at them, but Dean held his ground.

"Screw you," he said to the archangel.

Then he opened his arms wide, leaped backwards, and vanished into the darkness.

There were five of them left now. In the absence of distractions, the Doctor and Cas struggled furiously to close the portal, but it was clear they weren't making much progress. The bottoms of their long coats were flung in front of them, snapping identically in the gale. The Doctor's hair was even more disheveled than usual.

Sherlock and John were flat on the ground, John having fired all of his bullets into the vortex and thrown the now-useless gun in. The shots hadn't done much good, of course, but Rose imagined it made the soldier feel better.

Rose was crouched down like the rest of them, her arms cramping up from holding on to the floor. Behind the group, Moriarty and the Gabriels still watched calmly. The wind didn't affect them at all.

Blood rushed to Rose's cheeks. These people would wait until they were all dead, until the winds picked up enough to overcome the floor's friction or they became too tired to hold on or both. It didn't seem like the fabrivore was going anywhere. Her enemies' victory was inevitable, and still they would stay to make sure it happened. They would watch as every last one of the heroes tumbled into the vortex.

Something had to be done. Rose Tyler, destroyer of the Daleks, the Bad Wolf and companion to the Doctor, would not be a spectacle for these men. There was a way out of this; there had to be. She leaned over to yell something to the Doctor, but thought better of it upon seeing the look of utter concentration on her partner's face. It was taking every ounce of willpower the Time Lord had to keep fighting the fabrivore. She turned to John instead.

"We have to do something!" she screamed.

John nodded. "But what? There's no way out!"

"Maybe we can block the portal! Like plugging a drain!" Rose pointed to the stacks of crates in the corner. "It might at least distract it!"

"You think that'll work?"

"It's our only chance!" Rose jerked a thumb back at the Doctor and Cas. "Those two are about to give out. The fabrivore's too strong!"

She didn't want to have to say aloud what they were both thinking: if an angel and a Time Lord couldn't close the rift, nothing could. They were chasing a pipe dream, but right now it was all they had. Traveling with the Doctor had taught her that when your friends are in danger, you don't just sit there and wait for the storm to pass. You do what you can, even if that means shoving an empty wooden crate into the maw of a rift-tearing monster.

John understood that. He nodded again and put his mouth to Sherlock's ear. Rose didn't hear what he said, but Sherlock looked over sharply at his friend, scowling. A short argument followed, none of which was audible, but then John looked up at Rose and gave the thumbs-up.

Rose began to crawl over to the corner, but John yelled at her before she could make it more than a couple of inches. "No!" he said. "I'm closer, I'll get it!"

"They might be too heavy! I should help you!"

But the soldier shook his head. "It's too risky! Better one of us falls in than both of us!"

"Sitting here is just as bad! I can help!" Then Rose felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the Doctor, who spared a moment to glance over at her and shake his head before returning to the screwdriver. Rose pounded a fist into the concrete floor, scratching her skin. It wasn't fair. Then again, nothing about this situation was fair.

John, meanwhile, had already moved toward the crates. Taking the nearest one, he rose into a crouch and pushed it back in the direction of the opening in the wall. It looked like it might fit—the vortex was only about a meter wide, and the crate could easily cover that area. A glimmer of hope made Rose's heart beat faster.

The wind knocked the box from John's hand. The crate spun through the air and finally came to rest over the hole in the cinderblocks. With a tremendous creaking of wood, it held.

In the space of a second, the wind died.

A ghastly silence was left in its wake.

The Doctor shut off his screwdriver, and Cas returned to his normal state. Rose's ears were ringing with the memory of the deafening gale, but all else was silent in the warehouse save for the sound of creaking wood coming from the crate.

John let out a breath. "Well, that was easy," he said.

Rose began to giggle in spite of herself, forcing out the nervous laugh of someone who has escaped death for the umpteenth time. Sherlock was the next to go, chuckling softly to himself. Soon, everyone was laughing, except for Cas, who remained silent and stared forward.

Sherlock glanced behind him, wiping tears from his eyes. His face fell, prompting the others to look as well. Moriarty and the Gabriels still stood in the same positions, their expressions unchanged. Gabriel's grin chilled Rose even more now that the immediate danger was past. It was like he knew something they all didn't.

"Well?" asked Sherlock. "Got anything to say, Jim?"

Moriarty glanced at him, but said nothing.

"Forget him," assured John. The short man, who was still crouching, stood up and straightened his jacket. "Let's just find a way out of here before—"

He was interrupted by a sudden increase in the crate's creaks. John and the rest of the group turned as one to gape at the covered rift.

The creaks turned to cracks, and the sound of breaking wood echoed off the walls of the warehouse.

Everyone understood at once what was happening, but Sherlock was the first to get past the paralyzing horror of the moment. "John!" he screamed. "Get down!"

John's eyes grew wide. He looked back at Sherlock, reaching for his best friend, his mouth opening to form the name—

And then the crate broke.

The splinters whirled into the vortex, and suddenly the wind was back, howling with renewed force and sending Rose scrambling for handholds in the bumpy concrete floor. But she couldn't take her eyes off of John, who hadn't ducked in time. The last image she had of him was his mouth open, arm raised, legs whipped out from under him as the hole in the wall welcomed its next victim.

Sherlock stared into the swirling darkness. Rose thought she could see him mouth John's name as all traces of his indifferent mask fell away. In that moment, for the first and only time, she saw real pain in the consulting detective's face.

Rose heard the whir of the sonic screwdriver start up again to her right. The Doctor and Cas were back at it, trying with renewed viciousness to close the portal. She turned her head to see the Doctor gripping the screwdriver with both hands, a desperation in the set of his mouth that hadn't been there before. It frightened her to think of him like that, driven by grief to commit powerful and terrible acts. It reminded her too much of when she first met him.

Still, maybe a little desperation was just what they needed. The screwdriver's whine grew louder and higher-pitched. Looking past the Doctor, Rose thought Cas looked bigger than usual, and the light seemed more pure white than it had previously.

And was it her imagination, or had the wind eased up just a fraction? Rose looked back at the portal. No, the gusts had definitely died down, though they were still deafening, and the portal itself had definitely taken up more of the wall a moment ago.

Rose's heart leaped to her throat. It was working! They were doing it!

She squeezed the Doctor's arm for a second, then released it so that he could concentrate. "Keep going!" she yelled. "I think it's working!"

"It better!" grunted the Doctor. "I'm not losing anyone else today. Do you hear me, fabrivore?" he screamed into the vortex. "You've taken too many of my friends today!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," purred a voice from behind them.

Someone grabbed fistfuls of Rose's coat and hoisted her up into the air. She screamed, kicking furiously at whatever her legs could reach, but Gabriel seemed to feel nothing.

This Gabriel—and Rose couldn't be certain whether it was the real thing or a copy—held her like she weighed nothing. He laughed coldly as he surveyed the group, Rose still struggling futilely in his arms. Her coat was still zipped up, and the collar was digging into her throat, choking her. At the same time, the sleeves forced her arms too high.

She couldn't reach the zipper. She couldn't get out.

"Congratulations. The portal's closing. Even _he_ can't beat the world's greatest heroes," said Gabriel, yawning. "Whatever. Three of you have already fed him. Wait—make that four."

Gabriel thrust his arm out, pushing Rose as far away from himself as possible while still holding onto her. The coat rode up on her even more. She was having trouble getting enough air. Still, she struggled, trying to reach her zipper. But it wasn't any use.

Terror seized Rose's mind then, and she screamed, flailing without reason now, just trying to hit Gabriel, to get him to let go, to do anything to help herself.

Nothing worked. The angel's grip held.

Desperate, Rose looked over at the Doctor, and she saw him looking back. But he couldn't stop to help. The screwdriver was still whirring. He still held on to the hope that he could close the vortex in time. It was too risky to let go.

Rose understood why he did not help. She met his eyes.

"Rose," he yelled. Tears filled his eyes. Just for a moment, she thought his grip on the screwdriver wavered.

Rose shook her head as much as the coat allowed. "Don't. It's too late for me. You get these people out. Do what you have to."

The Doctor's chest heaved, the indecision written all over his face. One hand dropped from the screwdriver and hovered by his side.

"Rose..."

"It's okay." Rose smiled weakly. "Just make sure you win, all right? Kick this guy to Klom for me." She jerked her head to indicate Gabriel.

After a moment, the Doctor nodded. Without another glance, he turned his full attention back to the portal. The screwdriver whirred with new anger just as Gabriel opened his hand, relinquishing Rose Tyler to the wind of the fabrivore.

As the portal rushed up to meet her, Rose thought for a fleeting second that it was too small, she could catch the wall and hold on. But when she scrabbled at the cinderblock, she was going too fast. Her fingers just bounced off the edges of the portal. Her head bounced, too, with a sickening thud. Pain erupted behind her eyes as she tumbled through into blackness. In all the confusion, she never got the chance to have a last look at the Doctor.

_The Void_

There was a curious sensation of her entire body being stretched, as if she was being wound through a pasta machine. There was no noise, no light, nothing but that awful feeling and the swooping of her stomach and the constant urge to be sick and the pounding in her head.

Even so, she thought she could feel _things_ moving past her, things that had become lost in the Void, things of long-ago civilizations and unspeakable evils. She felt a huge monster slide by, and an army of smaller, shivering, clattering creatures. At one point, she even felt what she thought must be the fabrivore: a dark and looming presence that seemed to watch her as she endured the tortures of this space between the spaces. It watched her and was pleased.

Rose then began to feel a tremendous pressure squeezing down on her head. It traveled down to her neck, enveloped her chest, and then spread down her limbs, compressing her, replacing the previous feeling of being stretched out with one of being squashed into too tight a space. She was having trouble deciding which of the extremes was more uncomfortable. Neither process was painful, exactly. More like pain was no longer an option, and this was the closest she could come.

Then, suddenly, the sensation was gone, replaced by the altogether unsettling one of being hurled through the air. Rose's eyes snapped open to see another universe tumbling around her.


End file.
